by Kasey Krane
“Yes, please,” I said.
Even though I was the one who’d offered to make breakfast for him, all I could really do was stare at him work. It was amazing that a big burly man like him with those tattoos covering his body—someone who was able to bring Billy down to his knees, yelping, with just one punch—was so comfortable in a kitchen too.
The thought entered my head that Flash was the perfect man. The man I didn’t know I’d been waiting all my life for.
But what was I supposed to do now? I would have to let him go. Not that he wanted me to stay either.
This was all temporary. An extended one-night stand.
He looked up at me while he cracked a few eggs into a mixing bowl.
“Scrambled or fried?” he asked.
We sat across from each other at Flash’s kitchen table. It was like nothing I’d ever eaten at before. Beautiful and sleek, glass-topped with a section underneath that was filled with sand and pebbles and some water. So it looked like we were eating on top of a…creek!
“You brought your creek home!” I remarked as we dug into our scrambled eggs and toast. Flash grinned.
“Yeah, I basically had no input for my interior decorator for this home, but I made one request. I wanted an element of the creek in the house. She suggested this table and arranged to create it with the sand and pebbles from there.”
“Wow! It’s stunning. I didn’t even know something like this was possible. But then again, I come from a small town with limited resources. I can’t claim I’ve seen much of the world.”
Flash looked at me, studying my face closely again.
“You have this habit of putting yourself down,” he stated. I stared at him, a little stunned. I didn’t know what to say because he was right.
I rolled my eyes and tried to smile. “I guess…maybe.”
“You do. Maybe you should try seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes. Like mine,” he continued.
I gulped nervously. I knew we were approaching tricky territory.
“What would I see if I looked through your eyes?” I asked.
Flash took a big gulp of his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“A beautiful intelligent woman who is strong and capable of looking after herself.”
I could feel myself blushing but I didn’t want to look away from him. Also, a part of me didn’t believe him.
“I’ve spent a big part of my life being told that there wasn’t much to me besides my looks.”
His eyes roamed over me.
“You’re a strong woman. I don’t know your full story, Allegra, but I can see you’ve survived.”
I focused on my plate.
Because I couldn’t decide, Flash made both fried eggs and scrambled eggs. There was ham and sausages on my plate, along with toast and peanut butter. A steaming cup of coffee on the side.
It was the breakfast I’d been dreaming about for months, and yet, right now, I didn’t feel so hungry anymore.
“Thank you, I guess I needed to hear that,” I said, eventually looking up at him.
Flash nodded and continued to eat. I watched him for a moment, trying to decide how exactly to frame the words. I needed to say it. Rip it off like a Band-Aid before it got harder.
“I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the day,” I said.
Flash’s face was turned down to his plate. He’d just taken a big bite of a sausage and now he chewed through it slowly. I stared at him, waiting for a response. I had no idea what he was going to say—probably something as noncommittal as ‘okay’.
Then he looked up at me with those deep brown eyes. His bare shoulders were rugged and muscular. He was tanned and handsome, his big strong hand clutching that tiny piece of toast.
“You’re going nowhere,” he said.
His voice was commanding. He was laying down the rules. With his eyes, he was challenging me to defy him. I gulped.
“I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. This is not a joke to me.”
“And I’m not joking,” he growled, slapping the piece of toast down on his plate. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here.”
I let out a deep sigh and shook my head.
“I don’t think you understand, Flash, I can’t waste any more time here. I need to go…as far away from him as possible. He’s going to find me here eventually.”
“And what is he going to do to you if you have my protection?” he asked.
I clamped my mouth shut in surprise. His protection?
What was he really saying? My chest heaved with emotion. My eyes felt strained and tired. I wanted to crawl back into that king-sized bed in his bedroom and go to sleep again. My head hurt.
“Flash…seriously, I don’t have the time for this.”
I stood up, forgetting my food, leaving my coffee behind—I was about to walk away but he reached out and caught my hand.
“Did I say you could walk away?” he growled. That familiar thrill ran through me. I looked at him, waiting for his next command. “Sit down, woman.”
I did as I was told.
“This is not a joke. I’m not kidding around. I am offering you my protection. I want to be here to protect you if he finds you here. I want you to stop running.”
I let the words seep into me. I was finally starting to realize he was completely serious. This was not a sexual game. Flash was actually offering me something I didn’t know I deserved—support and protection.
“I want to be clear about something. You are not my prisoner. You are free to leave if you want after this discussion, but I want you to stay. I want you. But if you do decide to stay, I want complete honesty from you. I need to know the truth and I want the full picture.”
I kneaded my fingers together in my lap. I was beginning to feel panicked. I hadn’t discussed Billy with anyone since I’d left town. Nobody knew what actually happened between us or why I was on the run.
“Allegra. Can you do that?” Flash’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I gulped, but slowly, I nodded.
I wanted to be here too. That was the truth. I wanted him. Sophie’s words returned to me—there’s nobody as loyal and faithful as one of these guys when they officially claim you.
“I want to tell you everything,” I said.
“I wanted to be a teacher,” I admitted to Flash.
He was watching me carefully as I spoke. There was so much to say, I didn’t even know where to begin. I smirked at him and flashed my eyes. “I guess I don’t look much like a teacher to you, right? Not after last night’s performance at the bar.”
He sighed, breathing in deeply.
“I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what overtook me. I shouldn’t have acted like that…”
“Allegra, just tell me your story. Forget about what happened last night.” Flash spoke sternly and I nodded.
“Well, I was going to night school. I also had to take up a few extra jobs for money. I couldn’t go to regular school in the daytime because I was the only person earning any money in the household.”
I saw the way he clenched his jaws.
“And your household comprised of?”
I averted my eyes.
“My ex…Billy, and myself.”
He took a large sip of his coffee like he needed it. I could sense he didn’t like hearing about Billy. But I had to finish my story and Billy played a big role in it.
“He was a mechanic. When we met, he had a job at the local garage and I thought he was a good guy. With a steady job. Someone who would be able to…”
“Look after you?”
I looked down at my hands. I felt foolish. I was so naive. I made such bad choices. Why didn’t I see Billy for who he was? The signs were there from the beginning.
“What happened to his job?” Flash continued.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. All I know is when we moved in together, he had a job and I thought it would be great, but he lost that job. T
hen he found another one and lost that too. In a span of just four months, Billy had worked his way through a dozen or so jobs. None of which he could keep for very long.”
My hands shook a little, my mind zooming back to those days when I’d be slaving away in the kitchen, preparing a decent meal for us and Billy would come home late. I would hope it was because he was caught up at work, but usually it was because he went to the local watering hole and got drunk with his friends.
“I didn’t know what was going on, why he couldn’t keep his jobs. There were some rumors floating around about how Billy was in trouble. That he’d gotten himself involved with the wrong crowd. I chose to ignore that talk as nothing but gossip. I didn’t want to believe it. I thought I was in love with him and thought he felt the same way about me too.”
I was trying hard to hold back the tears. Flash continued to stare at me. His eyes were little x-ray beams and I couldn’t meet them.
“And what about you? What kind of work did you do?”
“I taught a few classes as a substitute teacher in the local elementary school. That way, I was picking up credits for my course and earning a bit too. In the evenings, I waitressed. One of us had to earn the money to keep the house running. Very quickly, I realized it wasn’t going to be Billy.”
“But you didn’t want to leave him.” His voice was almost an accusation.
“I couldn’t. I was too…weak. I just wanted to give him a chance.”
Flash clenched his jaws tightly, like he was beginning to lose his patience.
“It had been several months of this. Billy earning nothing and me working extra hours and picking up extra shifts so we could make ends meet. He was just more interested in drinking.”
“Was he violent? Did he hurt you?”
“Yes. Sometimes. When he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. I got into the habit of just locking myself in the bathroom when he returned home in the early hours of the morning. We had a nice bathtub and I slept in it while he slept in our bed.”
Flash shifted in his chair. He didn’t like where this story was going, but he had to hear it. He wanted to hear it.
“One day, it was a Sunday, I had a few hours free in the morning because one of my sub jobs got cancelled,” I continued. “I decided to clean up around the house because lately I hadn’t had the time for that. I found a…a shoebox…in the wardrobe. I’d never seen it before.”
Flash was focused on me. He was studying every inch of my movements, my facial expressions, everything.
“What was in the shoebox, Allegra?” he asked. His voice was deep and sombre. Almost like he already knew what I was about to say.
“Drugs. There were drugs in there. A quantity of drugs I’d never seen before. I was so scared when I saw it. I panicked. I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to believe it was Billy who put it there.”
I looked up at Flash. I was pleading with him to believe me. I wanted him to understand the kind of person I’d been before I left town and went on the run. I was naïve, and I was stupid, a girl who made silly decisions.
“So what did you do? Did you confront Billy?”
“No. I was so afraid. I wanted to get rid of it. I just didn’t want those drugs in my house. So I…I…flushed them down the toilet. I wasn’t thinking.”
I expected Flash to be surprised, to say something. But he didn’t. He just sat there in silence, watching me. Like this was exactly what he would have expected me to do. I stared at him in silence for a moment and then decided to continue.
“I called him after that.”
“Billy?”
“Billy.”
Flash let out a deep grunt and rubbed a hand over his face. He knew that me flushing away the drugs was the wrong move to make. But I didn’t know that. Not back then.
“And what did he say?”
“He was hysterical. He was so angry, and a little afraid, I think. I told him I panicked and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t thinking. I demanded to know if the drugs were his. I thought maybe…maybe he still cared about me and he would tell me everything, and we could work through it together.”
“And what did he do?”
“He returned to the house, mad with rage. He was flinging things. Breaking things. He slapped me right across the face so hard that it stung for hours.” I thought I would choke on the words, but I didn’t. Those scenes were playing like flashbacks in my head. Back then I was scared. I had never been more afraid in my life. I thought Billy would kill me. But now I was enraged. I couldn’t believe I let a man treat me like that.
Flash stood up from his chair with a jerk.
“I’m going to kill him,” he growled.
“That wasn’t all. He said I owed him now.”
“Owed him?”
“Yeah. Ten grand. He said he was holding the drugs for someone else and I would have to pay it up. I didn’t have ten thousand dollars. I barely had a few hundred.”
Now the tears pricked my eyelids. I wrung my hands together while Flash paced around in the kitchen in silence.
“He threatened my family, said he would hurt everyone. He said he’d hurt me or worse if I didn’t get him the money.”
“So you ran?”
“It was the only thing I could do. I just left that night. Packed a few things in a bag and got in my car and never looked back. But I knew he was chasing me. It’s been almost a year I’ve been on the run and he’s come close so many times.”
Flash stopped pacing. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen and staring at me now. There was a fire in his eyes. If I were Billy, I would be afraid right now. I’d run for my life.
“I don’t think I will ever have the money to repay him. I don’t think I will ever be able to return to my hometown. For the sake of my family, I have to stay away. I have to keep running. I know Billy will never let it drop. Whoever he works for, they won’t let it drop either.”
I stared at Flash as I spoke, wanted him to say something. Anything. But it looked like he was thinking. Like he had nothing to say.
Maybe the worst was coming true. Maybe he didn’t believe me or trust me, or he thought I was a complete idiot and didn’t deserve his protection anymore.
A single tear rolled down my cheek now. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. It was over.
I knew I never should have told him the whole story. Now he wouldn’t want me.
13
Flash
Allegra had a single tear rolling down her cheek after she finished telling me her story. The fact was I didn’t know what to do.
What she had told me so far about Billy and the drugs—made me reconsider the idea that she would be suited to my world.
I wanted her. There was no other woman I wanted to wake up next to. Being with her the last two days had felt like something I’d never experienced before. But was this life suitable for her?
“Flash…please, say something,” she spoke up.
Maybe I’d been silent for too long.
I clenched my fists and stared. She’d wiped the tear off her cheek and I could see she was trying her best to regain composure. Allegra was a proud woman. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of me. She didn’t want me to think she couldn’t handle this.
“I’m not going to let that bastard get to you. I want to keep you safe,” I said.
She shook her head and stood up from her chair.
“Please, you don’t have to. You are not committed to me in any way. If you think my past is too much to handle…I will understand.”
I stood staring at her and she came up to me slowly.
“I will always be grateful to you for what you have done for me already, Flash.”
She had no idea what my life was like.
Drugs, weapons, war, blood, crime…these were the elements of my life that occurred on a daily basis. We lived on the wrong side of the law. Sure, we had our own set of morals and rules. We abided by our own set of conduct, but if she was terrified by one s
hoebox filled with drugs, what would she do if she saw what we stored in our warehouse?
“I did what I had to do. I wasn’t going to stand by and watch you getting hurt by that motherfucker. I want to keep you safe, Allegra.”
She gulped and shook her head.
“Yes, but I can leave now. You don’t have to keep doing this. You don’t have to keep saving me from him.”
She was about to step away but I caught her hand and pulled her to myself. Just her touch was enough.
She was still in nothing but a towel wrapped her torso. Her hair was drying and taking on that silky shiny texture again. I remembered the glow on her face when she was asleep next to me this morning.
I wasn’t ready to let that go yet. I wasn’t ready to lose her.
“You’re not going anywhere. Not yet,” I said.
She tilted her face up toward me and I kissed her mouth. I wanted to claim her. Officially. I wanted to tell Drax and the rest of the Club about her, but not until she got a full taste of what we were about. Not until I was sure she could handle it.
Could she handle it?
We were still kissing and I was starting to untie the towel around Allegra’s body when I heard my phone ring.
I knew I couldn’t ignore it, given our situation with the Silver Knights currently.
“I have to get this,” I groaned, slowly pulling away from her.
She nodded and tightened the towel again.
I answered the call in the next few moments and saw it was Ghost calling.
“Get your ass to the Clubhouse now,” he said.
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah, something’s happened but you have to see this for yourself,” Ghost said and ended the call before I could ask him any more questions.
I turned to Allegra. She had already started loading the dishwasher.
“You don’t have to do that. My housekeeper will be here soon and she’ll take care of all that.”
She turned to me and I saw there was a twinkle in her eyes.